History Main / SelfStitching

[[quoteright:148:[[Film/TheProfessional http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yeoch_148_x_211_1774.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:148: YEOW!!!]]

A character for one reason or another can't go to a hospital, or [[AfterActionPatchup even get another character to help]], so they treat their own injuries. An oft-seen version of this trope (to establish the BadAss credentials of a character) involves sewing the injury up, with or without the use of anaesthetic. They may also HealItWithFire.

May involve WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut (but SuckOutThePoison will be pretty tricky if it's anywhere above the knee/elbow) or LifeOrLimbDecision. If the character isn't medically trained, it's probably an example of WorstAid. If they ''are'', it's a particularly extreme example of OneOfOurOwn. Also an example of AdultFear; it's a reasonably common nightmare. This scene is also a good chance to show that a character FeelsNoPain.

Compare AfterActionPatchup, when someone else does the first aid. Contrast AfraidOfNeedles.

See also PullingHimselfTogether.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Manga/BlackJack once performed a full surgery on his own abdomen, while being circled by hungry dingos. Black Jack also talked a quack doctor through performing surgery on him, which the quack had never done before. Soon after, the quack declared his intention to go to medical school for real.
* Heero fixes his own broken leg in ''GundamWing''. Heero's leg was dislocated and he relocated it by himself, which is technically possible but extremely painful. (But because Heero's TheStoic he didn't bat an eye and, unrealistically, was able to walk fine afterwards)
* Though perhaps different, Franky of ''OnePiece'' [[spoiler: completely rebuilt himself as a cyborg after suffering tremendous injury from being hit by a sea train. He did this with his own hands, without any assistance, and was thus only able to modify everything but his back, which he couldn't reach or see to work on.]]
* This is basically Faust XIII's shtick in ''ShamanKing''. He keeps himself all hopped up on morphine so he can freely modify his own body whenever he needs to.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* During a battle between {{Lobo}} and his daughter they slash each other up so badly their regenerative powers can't keep up, so they take a break to stitch themselves up.
* The [[UltimateXMen Ultimate]] [[PlayingWithFire Pyro]] is covered with scars due to [[HealItWithFire cauterizing his wounds]] whenever he gets shot during one of his mutant protest.
* Hush from ''{{Batman}}'' can perform surgery on himself, including plastic surgery to make himself look like others as he did in the comics and [[spoiler: BatmanArkhamCity]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ProfessionalKiller [[Film/TheProfessional Leon]] returns to his apartment and is seen patching himself up in the shower, showing that he had been injured carrying out one of his hits.
* Chigurh does this in ''NoCountryForOldMen'', as if he wasn't BadAss enough. He [[WeNeedADistraction torches a car so he can steal the antibiotics he needs from a chemist shop unobserved]]. Moss has to patch himself up as well, but his attempt is considerably more amateur.
* TheTerminator can do this as he FeelsNoPain. He's a cyborg with a meat suit - so it doesn't really affect him when he takes his own injured eye out.
* The antagonist in ''PansLabyrinth'' sews his [[GlasgowGrin forcefully extended smile]] shut on camera.
* Played with in ''SilentRunning'' when the protagonist reprograms a robot to perform surgery on his badly injured leg.
* ''Film/TheFugitive'' (1993). After he reaches the hospital, Richard Kimble sews up the wound he received in the bus crash. {{Justified|Trope}} because he's a doctor.
* ''{{Predator 2}}''. The Predator applying hot coals to the stump of its amputated hand to cauterize the wound.
* Franchise/{{Rambo}} sews up his wounds in [[Film/FirstBlood the first movie]], and in ''RamboIII'' digs shrapnel out of his side and then [[HealItWithFire cauterizes the wound with burning gunpowder]].
* ''ImGonnaGitYouSucka'' has a parody of the above Rambo scene when Jack Spade digs a splinter out of his finger.
* The title villain in ''Film/DrGiggles'' is shot in the leg at one point, and not only does the surgical work to remove the bullet and stitch up the wound himself, but he does it as if he had a full medical staff, down to requesting (and handing himself) various tools to work with. Of course, this was less him being BadAss and more him being [[AxCrazy bat-shit insane]].
* In ''{{Legion}}'', the archangel Michael sews stitches into his back after ''cutting off his own wings''. It's his second scene in the movie, as if they wanted to establish right away that he's a badass.
* Happens in ''{{Gladiator}}''.
* Dalton in ''Film/RoadHouse'' sews his wounds from the opening scene, to establish how BadAss he is. Website/TheAgonyBooth's recap humorously captioned this with "Warning: Do not try to be this much of a badass at home."
* Near the end of ''[[GrindHouse Death Proof]]'', Stuntman Mike pours liquor on a wound to prevent infection. Subverted in that he was cringing the whole time.
* Sally from ''TheNightmareBeforeChristmas'' completely sews herself back together... but then she ''is'' a rag doll.
* Wade, TheMedic from TheSquad in ''SavingPrivateRyan'', gets hit by enemy fire a little more than halfway through the movie. He tries guiding the others through some things, until he comes to realize that his case is hopeless. At which point he just tells them to give him lots of morphine.
* The crazy psychiatrist in ''TheFrontPage'' is last seen rolling away on a gurney demanding a scalpel and a ceiling mounted mirror so he can operate on himself; he being the only doctor he trusted.
* In ''Film/{{Saw}}'', the BigBad often requires his "students" to perform grievous injuries to oneself to pass his trials. More often than not, they are given appropiate surgical equipment for the task. One scene in the first movie involves a surgeon [[LifeOrLimbDecision chopping his foot off with a bonesaw in order to escape]]. Interestingly, the man in question is actually a trained surgeon, one of the only such people in the series.
* ''CastAway'' features a scene where Chuck has to extract a bothersome tooth. Using an ice skate. [[{{Squick}} Yeah.]]
* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and subverted in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' when Alfred finds Bruce stitching up a dog bite on his arm and remarks "Whenever you stitch yourself up, you do make a bloody mess" before taking over.
* ''TheBourneUltimatum'' opens with Bourne breaking into a pharmacist to fix up the injuries sustained in the climax of the previous instalment.
* ''{{Prometheus}}'': The now-infamous scene of [[spoiler:Shaw's]] self-administered emergency surgery. [[spoiler: The tense buildup to the eventual cutting of the stomach and removal of the ''[[CosmicHorror thing]]'' she "births" is bad enough, but it gets even worse when it bursts out of its sac in the Medpod's claw inches from her face and ''starts trying to attack her midway through the surgery.'']]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the {{Aubrey-Maturin}} novel ''HMS Surprise'', Dr. Stephen Maturin performs surgery to remove a bullet from his own ribs after being wounded in a duel (also seen in ''MasterAndCommanderTheFarSideOfTheWorld'' after Maturin gets shot accidentally).
* Miss Gard of ''TheDresdenFiles'' series once stuffed a portion of her own intestines back into her body and used Super Glue to seal the wound. [[spoiler: Probably made easier by being a Valkyrie, but still damn impressive.]]
* Eve Dallas does this after being injured by a random criminal in one ''InDeath'' book. Her captain later calls in an actual medic to look at the wound, much to her displeasure.
* M'k'n'zy of Calhoun does this in the very first book of ''StarTrekNewFrontier.'' He closes his own facial wound. ''[[{{Squick}} With a laser welder]].'' The scar is one of his defining facial features as TheCaptain.
* Creator/StephenKing had a grisly short story about a doctor who survives some kind of wreck and winds up on a flyspeck island in the middle of the ocean. Eventually the good doctor has to [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty turn cannibal]] on ''himself'', cutting off certain parts, eating them, then taking care so that the area around the sacrificed part wouldn't get infected or anything. At the very end of the story the doctor, who is a surgeon and has been taking very good care of his hands the whole time, finally gets desperate enough to start looking at them... (Apparently when King first had this idea, he ran into a local doctor he knew at the supermarket and asked about whether the idea was at all feasible in real life. The doctor gave him a very odd look before replying that yes, it was theoretically possible).
* Igors in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' do surgery on themselves all the time. Subverted, in a way, in that they don't actually feel any pain while doing this, so it's never an ordeal unless they have difficulty keeping the mirror steady. Even the visible scars are an affectation - they're perfectly capable of stitching seamlessly.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures, the Doctor pops his own dislocated shoulder back in. It's not that he's alone, but he probably figured it's better to do it himself than to make Fitz feel guilty for hurting him.[[note]]Later in the same book, Fitz feels obliged to make it up to a budgie for startling it, so... he's pretty clearly [[NiceGuy a bit of a sensitive chap]].[[/note]]
* In RickRiordan's ''TheHeroesOfOlympus'' novel ''The Mark of Athena'', Annabeth has to set her own broken ankle.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* A variation on ''{{Firefly}}'': [[TheMedic Simon]] did not do the surgery on himself, but he did talk [[TheLancer Zoe]] through the whole process while she removed a bullet and dressed the wound. Once she was finished, Simon declared his intent to immediately pass out.
* Possibly subverted on ''Series/{{Lost}}''. Jack insists on being awake so he can talk Juliet through performing an appendectomy on him, but after she begins they decide to knock him out as he's in too much pain.
** A notable aversion occurs in the pilot. Jack is ready to stitch up a cut he sustained but it is on his side and he can't reach it properly. This prompts a MeetCute moment with Kate when he asks her to stitch it up for him.
* This seems to be the only kind of medical attention the boys of ''{{Supernatural}}'' ever receive.
-->'''Sam:''' I need a pen knife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey. Stat!
* Happens semi-regularly on ''Series/{{House}}''. Perhaps one of the most unpleasant examples came when House discovered he had several small tumours in his leg, and was forced to cut his leg open to remove them.
* PlayedForLaughs in "Smile Time" when Series/{{Angel}} gets mauled by a werewolf [[PuppetPermutation after being turned into a puppet]], but can't stitch himself up due to his puppet hands.
* Ace Rimmer operates on his own broken arm in his first appearance in ''RedDwarf''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:TabletopGames]]
* When a young Victor Mordenheim of ''{{Ravenloft}}'' was bitten on the ear by one of his father's hunting dogs, he amputated the ripped lobe himself. His stoicism in doing so convinced his father that the boy was serious about his ambition to become a surgeon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid 3: Snake Eater''. Part of the gameplay is that, rather than just [[HyperactiveMetabolism eating Rations to heal]], you have to perform first aid on yourself to recover from most injuries. That includes digging out bullets and arrows with your knife, sewing up wounds, and the like.
* ''RobinsonsRequiem'', also known as 'the masochist game'. Basically a 'survive on an empty planet' game, one of the main challenges is that you have to perform realistic first aid on yourself - sewing up and dressing wounds, making splints, and - if necessary - performing amputations.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' it never happens for real, but [[spoiler: Naoto's]] Shadow expresses a desire to [[spoiler: carry out a [[GenderBender sex change operation on her(self)]]]]. Representing her insecurity from being patronised by the police.
* In ''Videogame/EvilGenius'', One of the henchmen you can recruit, Ethan Asia, was performing surgery on a Papa New Guinean tribesman, when his patient suffered a fatal heart attack while Ethan simultaneously suffered pancreatic failure. Seeing no other options, Ethan opted to transplant his patient's pancreas into his own body.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Characters sewing up their own wounds (and whether you get XP for it) is a running gag in ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable''.
* In ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', Dr. [=McNinja=] has to stitch his own wounds [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/5p11 here]] after being riddled with bullets.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff400/fv00348.htm Florence, when caught in the hurriciane.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-542 SCP-542]], a stitched-together [[FrankensteinsMonster Frankensteinian]] HerrDoktor type who routinely did this in order to replace his organs as they failed before he was taken into the care of the foundation.
* Happens twice in the ''[[http://jayisgames.com/tag/darkcut Dark Cut]]'' MeatGrinderSurgery series of flash games.
** In the second game, you're operating on a patient on a AmericanCivilWar battlefield, when there's an explosion and you wake up to find a giant piece of shrapnel through your leg pinning you to the ground. You then have to amputate your own leg to survive (...with whiskey and a hacksaw).
** In the third game, you're operating on patients via a virtual interface in the future, and eventually end up having to cut off your own arm instead [[spoiler:to save yourself from being taken over and controlled by [[AIIsACrapshoot the AI helping you when it turns rogue]], since the AI keeps you from removing the interface any other way]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''MoralOrel'': Dr. Chosenberg tries to sew his own Jesus-looking chest wound because everyone else thinks it's a miracle and won't touch it.
* Starscream of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' is seen ''almost'' doing this with a T-Cog he havested from a dead clone of himself so he can transform again. Understandably, when something else comes up, he's perfectly happy for the excuse to put it off.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''AquaTeenHungerForce.'' The evil doctor (forgot his name) tells his assistant "Gentlemen! I have decided to lose weight...manually!" And he promptly pulls out a chainsaw and begins cutting away at his fat.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Professional chefs regularly keep superglue in their knife kits just in case they give themselves a serious knife wound while working. And by serious, we're talking "cut to the bone" serious. Anything less and its "slap a blue bandaid on it and move on".
* In 1961 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov Dr. Leonid Rogozov]] performed a self-appendectomy at a Soviet research station in Antarctica, as he was the only physician there.
* In 1998 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Nielsen Dr. Jerri Nielsen]], the only doctor at a South Pole scientific station, discovered she had breast cancer and had to operate on herself to extract tissue samples for testing. A similar story was later used in an episode of ''Series/{{House}}''.
* TheOtherWiki page on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery Self-surgery]] has a number of media examples.
* The top four entries of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19218_6-insane-diy-surgeries-you-wont-believe-actually-worked_p2.html this]] article.
* Any veterinarian who treats cats is bound to resort to this sooner or later.
[[/folder]]
----

May involve WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut or LifeOrLimbDecision. If the character isn't medically trained, it's probably an example of WorstAid. If they ''are'', it's a particularly extreme example of OneOfOurOwn. This scene is also a good chance to show that a character FeelsNoPain.

* Hush from {{Batman}} can perform surgery on himself, including plastic surgery to make himself look like others as he did in the comics and [[spoiler: BatmanArkhamCity]].

* Igors in Literature/{{Discworld}} do surgery on themselves all the time. Subverted, in a way, in that they don't actually feel any pain while doing this, so it's never an ordeal unless they have difficulty keeping the mirror steady. Even the visible scars are an affectation - they're perfectly capable of stitching seamlessly.

* In RickRiordan's TheHeroesOfOlympus novel ''The Mark of Athena'', Annabeth has to set her own broken ankle.

* When a young Victor Mordenheim of {{Ravenloft}} was bitten on the ear by one of his father's hunting dogs, he amputated the ripped lobe himself. His stoicism in doing so convinced his father that the boy was serious about his ambition to become a surgeon.

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-542 SCP-542]], a stitched-together [[FrankensteinsMonster Frankensteinian]] HerrDoktor type who routinely did this in order to replace his organs as they failed before he was taken into the care of the foundation.

* MoralOrel: Dr. Chosenberg tries to sew his own Jesus-looking chest wound because everyone else thinks it's a miracle and won't touch it.

* TheTerminator can do this as he FeelsNoPain.

* In ''Film/{{Saw}}'', the BigBad often requires his "students" to perform grievous injuries to oneself to pass his trials. More often than not, they are given appropiate surgical equipment for the task. One scene in the first movie involves a surgeon [[LifeOrLimbDecision chopping his foot off with a bonesaw in order to escape]].

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Characters sewing up their own wounds (and whether you get XP for it) is a running gag in ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable''.
* In ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', Dr. [=McNinja=] has to stitch his own wounds [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/5p11 here]] after being riddled with bullets.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff400/fv00348.htm Florence, when caught in the hurriciane.]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-542 SCP-542]], a stitched-together [[FrankensteinsMonster Frankensteinian]] HerrDoktor type who routinely did this in order to replace his organs as they failed before he was taken into the care of the foundation.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* MoralOrel: Dr. Chosenberg tries to sew his own Jesus-looking chest wound because everyone else thinks it's a miracle and won't touch it.
* Starscream of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' is seen ''almost'' doing this with a T-Cog he havested from a dead clone of himself so he can transform again. Understandably, when something else comes up, he's perfectly happy for the excuse to put it off.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid 3: Snake Eater''. Part of the gameplay is that, rather than just [[HyperactiveMetabolism eating Rations to heal]], you have to perform first aid on yourself to recover from most injuries. That includes digging out bullets and arrows with your knife, sewing up wounds, and the like.
* ''RobinsonsRequiem'', also known as 'the masochist game'. Basically a 'survive on an empty planet' game, one of the main challenges is that you have to perform realistic first aid on yourself - sewing up and dressing wounds, making splints, and - if necessary - performing amputations.

* In 1998 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Nielsen Dr. Jerri Nielsen]], the only doctor at a South Pole scientific station, discovered she had breast cancer and had to operate on herself to extract tissue samples for testing.

* CareerKiller [[Film/TheProfessional Leon]] returns to his apartment and is seen patching himself up in the shower, showing that he had been injured carrying out one of his hits.

* Starscream of ''TransformersPrime'' is seen ''almost'' doing this with a T-Cog he havested from a dead clone of himself so he can transform again. Understandably, when something else comes up, he's perfectly happy for the excuse to put it off.

* ''Film/TheFugitive'' (1993). After he reaches the hospital, Richard Kimble sews up the wound he received in the bus crash. {{Justified}} because he's a doctor.